Spread My Dreams Under Your Feet
by Ari Moriarty
Summary: Seventh in the "Dreamgirl" series. Nanako has questions about the future, and Adachi has regrets about the past. They both have things to learn about the present.
1. Essay

**Author's Note: **Another short story, this time taking place during/after the timeline of **The Wildest Dreams.** This story is, therefore, supposed to read as a companion piece to the **Dreamgirl** series.

For some reason, the older I get, the less I think about the future and the more I think about the past.

That sentiment is what sparked this story. It is, as usual, a restless thing that I wrote while unable to sleep.

**One: Essay**

Nanako slid into a chair at the Junes food court, looking exhausted and annoyed.

"I hate school," she muttered.

Adachi raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!" Nanako slammed her notebook emphatically down on the table, and glared at it. It was pink, with a cat sticker on the front. The cat sticker was smiling placidly. Nanako and the cat stared each other down.

"That's weird." Adachi shrugged. "Yesterday you went on and on about some stupid 'career experience' workshop you were getting all worked up about. I thought you were looking forward to that."

Nanako made a face. "I was wrong," she mumbled. "The career experience is going to be stupid, just like you said."

"Well, duh," muttered Adachi, but Nanako looked so genuinely unhappy that he didn't really have the heart to say "I told you so." Instead he sat and watched her for a moment, until Nanako took a deep breath and began to speak.

"I have to write an essay," she informed Adachi. "It's supposed to be an essay about 'what I want to be wh en I grow up.'"

"Uh…seriously?" Adachi was not impressed. "How the hell old does that teacher think you are?"

"I know! " agreed Nanako. "That's what I said! Why do we have to write essays like that? That's something a little kid would have to do."

Adachi shrugged. "So, it's an easy topic, right? Just write down whatever the hell pops into your head and turn it in. It'll take you…what, an hour, maybe?"

Nanako frowned. "Um…"

Again, she paused uncomfortably, and again, Adachi waited.

"I'm having trouble," she admitted eventually. "It's…it's hard, actually."

"Heh. All right." Adachi reached over and pulled her pink notebook across to him. "Let's see what you've got so far."

He opened to the first page, which was blank. The second page of the notebook, however, was entitled "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up, by Nanako Dojima." It went on to read, "When I graduate from high school, I know what I want to do with the rest of my life. I want to be…"

The sentence ended there, and the rest of the page was entirely blank.

"This is it?" asked Adachi.

Nanako looked miserable. "Uh huh…" She bit her lip, and added, "I don't…I don't think I know what I want to do after school. I mean, Dad says I should go to college like Big Bro, and I think want to go to college. Maybe when I get to college, I'll learn about something I like, and when I learn enough about it, I'll know that I like it enough to want to do it forever. That's…that's what college is for, right? It's for learning what you want to be. How am I supposed to know that now? I've never even been out of Inaba. Almost everyone I know is a police officer, and I don't think I want to be a police officer. I don't want to be a teacher, either, and I don't want to work in a shop like Yosuke, so…" She shook her head. "There are other things too, right? I just don't t know yet."

"Uh…hang on," muttered Adachi. "This is just an essay. It isn't that big a deal. It's not like this essay is gonna decide what you actually do for the rest of your life. You just need the damn grade."

"But," Nanako insisted, "I just told you, I don't know what to write the essay about, yet! I can't write it if there's nothing that I want to do."

Grabbing the notebook, she gave it one final desperate look and then shoved it back into her backpack.

"Well, uh…not sure I can help you much with this one," mumbled Adachi. "I mean, I'm a detective, and you say you're not into being a policeman, so…sorry. Looks like I'm not the guy for this job."

Nanako nodded glumly. "I guess not," she agreed. Then she frowned, looked thoughtfully into his face, and asked, "Did you always want to be in the police?"

"What?" Adachi blinked. "Uh…no, definitely not. Being a detective's pretty stupid, anyway. All I ever get is stuck doing is traffic patrol. The real thing's nothing like the stuff you see on TV. There's no firing guns, or running into burning buildings to save super-hot chicks in distress. Occasionally, if I'm really lucky, I get to save a damn cat."

"I like cats," remarked Nanako.

Adachi rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I don't. Dumbass animals are too fucking stupid to stay out of the trees. What the hell does a cat want to climb a tree, for, anyway? It's not like it needs the birds. It'll get food if it just stays in the house and sits on its ass for long enough. Jeez…"

Nanako considered that for a moment. "Cats probably get bored of being fed all the time," she decided. "They're predators, right? So, they need to exercise their 'predatory instincts.' They need to chase birds and mice, or they don't feel very much like cats anymore. Um…at least, that's what I think makes sense."

Adachi smiled to himself. "Yeah…yeah, that sounds about right."

"And you get bored a lot," added Nanako, jabbing a finger at Adachi. "You get bored with doing traffic and answering phones, so you should understand."

"You're…seriously comparing me to a cat?" asked Adachi.

Nanako nodded. "You like to hide in shady places away from people," she said, holding up one hand and ticking off the points on her fingers "You like to sleep instead of to work. You get scared easily and you get mean when you get scared, and you like to run around chasing shadows for fun. You're a lot like a cat."

Adachi gaped at her. "Wh-what? I thought you were supposed to actually like me! Don't you want to add something to that? You know, something like 'and you're cute, like a cat?'"

"I do you like you," retorted Nanako, "but the stuff I said is true. Plus, you'd be cuter if your hair wasn't so messy and if you didn't have a coffee stain on your tie."

"Uh…yeah." Adachi gazed down at his tie." I didn't notice that. Anyway, some girls like messy hair. My hair says that I'm a fun, casual guy, right?"

He grinned uncertainly. Nanako ignored him.

"Why," she insisted, "did you become a policeman if you didn't want to in the first place?"

Adachi, of course, had been hoping that she wasn't going to ask that question. For some reason, he realized, he didn't really want to talk about it.

_It's not like it's that big of a deal, _he told himself. _It was a long time ago, anyway, and everybody does stupid shit when they're kids. _

Still, thinking about his teenage years made Adachi uncomfortable. Nostalgia was an ugly, scary thing that so often dredged up the most miserable hold memories. Some of the worst memories were the happiest ones; the ones that were so shrouded by the forgiving mists of time that they seemed like such shining examples of the perfect life in comparison to the hell that Adachi had been through since.

"Please?" begged Nanako. "Tell me. It might help me start on my essay. I want to know about the stuff that was important to you when you were a kid."

"Uh…look, maybe another time," mumbled Adachi. Suddenly, he wasn't feeling so much like talking. "It doesn't matter. It was some stupid kid reason; I forget exactly what."

_I used to say I only became a cop so that I could legally carry a gun, _he thought. _Think she'll buy that excuse? Nah…on second thought, that wouldn't work. _ _Well, I mean, I guess it's not completely a lie, but still…_

Nanako was now watching him with concern in her eyes. "You look upset. Should I not ask that? I'm sorry…"

"Forget it," Adachi told her. "You're fine. It's not important. Anyway, this essay isn't supposed to be about me. Come on, there has to be something you like to do."

Nanako thought. "I like singing," she said aftera moment. "I had fun at karaoke with Marie and Suzume the other night. I wasn't bad, either!"

Adachi found himself imagining Nanako as a professional rock star, dressed all in black with her hair spiked, and screaming out curse words. He snorted a laugh at this ridiculous image, and then pictured her as a lounge singer in a slinky dress, providing entertainment at a gentleman's night club.

"What the…" he muttered. That image made him feel distinctly queasy.

"N-nah, singers barely get paid," he heard himself stammer. "Uh, pick something else."


	2. Assay

**Two: Assay**

A couple of days later, Nanako and Adachi were back to back in the midst of Magatsu Inaba, standing their ground while Azrael finished off a huge and catlike shadow.

"Agidyne!" commanded Nanako. Azrael opened its mouth and breathed out a tongue of white-hot flame, engulfing the shadow in a ring of fire and wounding it badly.

Enraged, the shadow turned and focused its attention on Nanako. It lunged forward, claws outstretched, and Adachi just managed to pull her out of the way before emptying six rapid rounds into the shadow's chest. The shadow screeched, writhed, and exploded into a cloud of red and black essence.

For a moment, no one dared to move. Then Adachi started cursing under his breath, and sank down to sit on the ground. Nanako joined him, and Azrael disappeared back into the sea of their conglomerate soul.

"We did better that time," remarked Nanako.

Adachi didn't say anything at first. Then he leaned his head back against the wall, and closed his eyes. "Yeah…whatever."

"No," Nanako insisted, "really! We beat it really fast this time, and we didn't even get hurt once."

Adachi shook his head, grimaced, and waved a hand at Nanako, trying to express something that wasn't coming through.

"I'm fine," she told him. "Really!"

"…Yeah." Adachi sighed "I know."

Nanako was frustrated. Despite how much they'd improved at using their persona together, Adachi still got like this almost every time they went into the TV world by themselves. Nanako knew that she should understand, since technically it was her fault that he got the living terrors whenever they tried to fight. She knew that he was thinking at least some about her well being, and she was honestly touched by the feeling behind his panic. At the same time, though, she was also starting to get worried that these panics of his might never end.

"You're a great shot, Adachi-san," she told him encouragingly. "You hit that shadow every time!"

Adachi shrugged. "Takes practice," he muttered.

Nanako wondered if it might be a good idea to distract him from his own thoughts by changing the subject. "Is that why you became a policemen? Because you're good at stuff like that?"

"What? Nah, that's not-!" Adachi stopped, turned, and looked very hard at Nanako. "You're still stuck on that? I thought you said you were gonna drop it."

"Um….y-yeah, that's true," agreed Nanako awkwardly. "But, I was just curious…I mean…"

Adachi sighed. "If you want to know about that stuff so bad, can't you just pull it out of my head? You can read my thoughts, can't you? So? Read them."

"No." Nanako shook her head. "That wouldn't be polite. It's not right to read someone else's secrets without asking. It would be like reading a diary."

"So…you're just gonna keep asking me" asked Adachi. "How is that better?"

"Why," insisted Nanako, "don't you want to tell me? Is it something scary? When you act like it's a big secret, it just makes me more worried. Why am I not supposed to know about it?"

Adachi groaned. "Fine! You win, jeez." He threw up both hands in a gesture of defeat. "Like I said, it's not that big of a deal. If you really want to know that bad…"

"I do," insisted Nanako eagerly, crossing her legs and settling herself in to listen.

"Yeah," mumbled Adachi. "Yeah, I got that. Anyway, I'll tell if you it'll get you stop being so damn annoying about it."

Nanako sat patiently and waited.

"Uh…" Adachi fumbled for a moment, apparently trying to figure out where to start. He ran a nervous hand through his hair and chewed on his lip. "So, I mean, it wasn't actually my idea to become a cop. I was never that into it, at the beginning."

What did you want to do? asked Nanako.

Adachi shrugged. "Who knows? I was like you; I was seventeen and I didn't feel like wasting time thinking about it. I was too busy studying my ass off at prep school anyway."

"But…if you were at prep school, weren't you preparing for college?" Nanako frowned. "So, you wanted to do something, right?"

"Shut up," muttered Adachi. "I'm telling the damn story you wanted, so listen up."

Nanako fell dutifully silent.

"Anyway," he went on, "Uh, like I said, it wasn't my idea. Ginnosuke was the one who came up with the dumb idea of trying out for the academy. I didn't have a better idea and I wanted to get out of the house like hell, so I went along with it. We both got in, and that's how I became a cop."

Nanako continued waiting, but that was apparently all Adachi intended to say.

"See?" Adachi gave her a triumphant little smirk. "Not that interesting after all, right?"

"Who's Ginnoske?" asked Nanako.

Adachi's face fell. "The hell does it matter? He's just some guy."

"You decided to be a police detective because of him! That's…kind of a big deal," Nanako pointed out. "Is he a childhood friend?"

Adachi sneered at her. "'Don't make it sounds so damn romantic, okay? He was just this guy I knew in high school. He was on the basketball team and he had a rich Dad, so everybody liked him."

"Oh!" Nanako smiled. "Were you on the basketball team, Adachi-san? Big Bro plays basketball, too. Oh, but, um, I guess you knew that."

"Tch, I never said that." Adachi glowered at the ground, and muttered something under his breath that sounded like "…math team."

"Huh?" asked Nanako. "What? I didn't…"

"I said I was on the damn math team," snarled Adachi. "I was a fucking high school nerd. I told you I studied a lot, right? My parents were obsessed with grades and with showing my report cards off to their stuck-up friends. I wouldn't have known a sport if it had smacked me in the face."

"O-oh." Nanako frowned "Well…"

She pondered that for a moment, wondering exactly what a "math team" actually was. _It's a team you can be on at school, so…um, maybe it's like a team where kids can do competitive math? Whichever team does the best math or gets the most problems right wins? That…it has to be something like that, right?_

"That's cool!" she decided, beaming at Adachi. "Math is really hard. I'm no good at it. You must have been really smart in school!"

"Uh…what? No, you don't get it. Math team is nothing to get excited about," muttered Adachi. "Anyway, can you really imagine me hanging out with the dumbass basketball jocks? Give me a break."

Nanako thought that she could, but she kept that to herself. "But you must have been popular," she hazarded. "You said you were friends with the popular kids, right?"

"Yeah, right." Adachi rolled his eyes. "Not exactly. I was friends with Ginnosuke, anyway. He was a decent guy, even if he did act like a dumb sack of shit half the time. He wasn't that good at math, so I helped with his math homework, and he hooked me up with some cigarettes and told a few lies for me when I skipped out on my second period class. Like I said, he was okay."

"And…then you went to the police academy together?" Nanako frowned. "But you must have really liked him if you followed him all the way to the police academy."

"Really?" Adachi raised an eyebrow. "Actually, when he mentioned it I jumped at the chance. I mean, hey, his old grandpa had gone there, and so had his uncle something-or-other. He had connections, and it looked like an easy in. I was so ready to get out of my damn house I thought my head would explode. Plus, I sorta wanted to show my parents that I didn't have to be a doctor or a fucking lawyer. That sure pissed them off." He grinned. "So much for their 'little overachiever,' right?"

Nanako wasn't sure that was a very good reason to go to a particular school. She'd heard about a lot of girls from her high school who'd run away with their boyfriends just to get away from their parents, and this sounded to her like pretty much the same thing.

"Um, so, where does Ginnosuke-san work?" she asked. "Did he become a detective, too? Are you still friends?"

"Uh…" Adachi rubbed the back of his neck, then looked away. "Nah, not exactly. I don't know where he is, now. Haven't seen him in a real long time."

"I-I see." Nanako realized that she'd touched some kind of nerve. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pried like that. Is Ginnosuke-san-?"

Abruptly, an image flashed through Nanako's mind. It was the fleeting and morbid picture of a man screaming, clutching at a bullet that was lodged in his leg. Other people were yelling unintelligibly in the background, and Nanako could just barely make out the unmistakable silhouette of Adachi's own hand, reaching out towards the injured man's wound.

Nanako sucked in a sharp breath, realizing that whatever she'd just seen had come from somewhere in the depths of Adachi's mind. She'd heard stories like this before, of course; both in books and in real life. She'd always known just how dangerous police work could be, and somehow everyone on the force seemed to have a friend or a partner who'd lost his or her life in the line of duty.

"Tell you what," muttered Adachi, sounding suddenly tired. "Let's drop it, okay?"

"But…" Nanako didn't think she could let it go that easily. "Adachi-san, is…" She frowned, rallied, and then scooted a little closer to him on the floor. "Is Ginnosuke-san…dead?"

"What?" Adachi turned and stared at her in surprise. "Dead? What the hell makes you think that? Nah, he's not dead. At least…if he is, nobody bothered telling me about it."


	3. Essau

**Three: Essau**

**Flashback – Eleven Years Ago**

Newly minted detectives Tohru Adachi and Ginnosuke Akiyama strolled out through the parking lot of the police station, proudly displaying their plainclothes attire and holding their heads up high.

Ginnosuke stretched both arms behind his head and grinned at his partner. "You know, _Detective _Adachi, I'd say that our first day post-promotion has been pretty damn good so far. Am I crazy, or was Chikako at the front desk totally giving us the eye on the way out?"

Adachi stopped and stared at him. "H-hey, seriously? Chikako? Are you talking hottie Chikako with the lisp and the amazing-!"

"Yup. That's the one." Ginnosuke sighed in self-satisfaction, and added with a smug little note in his voice, "I mean, come on, it's not like she and I haven't been chatting it up for weeks, but…now that we're _detectives, _I think I might finally be able to really seal the deal."

"Damn," muttered Adachi, slightly resentful and a little jealous. "Lucky you."

Ginnosuke laughed, and threw a companionable arm around Adachi's shoulders. "Hey, what's with that face? Like I'd leave my partner in crime out, or something. Come on, I'll make sure you get a date, too. How about Momoka?"

Adachi gave him a blank look. "Who?"

"Momoka," repeated Ginnosuke. "Uh, what's her last name? Endo, maybe? Not sure, but she does the towels and the floors and stuff at the gym. She's got nice eyes and pretty good legs."

"Right…sure." Adachi tried to picture the woman who cleaned the local gym. All he could call to mind was the image of a broad back, a pair of dirty jeans, and a pink dragonfly hairpin. "Uh…yeah, I guess that's fine," he mumbled. Not exactly his first choice, but it had been too long since he'd been laid. He was too far gone to be picky. "Whatever."

"Yeah, it'll be great," agreed Ginnosuke confidently. "She's Chikako's roommate, so that'll be pretty easy to set up. Maybe we can try out that new club downtown. What do you think about Saturday?"

Adachi shook his head. "Saturday? Seriously, you haven't even asked her out yet, and already we're going to the club? Give me a break."

"Have a little faith!" Ginnosuke was still grinning. "Come on, you know me! I can make this work."

By this time, they had arrived at Adachi's car. Adachi unlocked the door and slid into the driver's seat, expecting Ginnosuke to join him on the passenger side. After a few seconds, however, Ginnosuke still hadn't gotten in, and Adachi looked out of the window to see what the holdup was. Ginnosuke wasn't there.

"Hey, Ginnosuke!" Adachi got back out of the car and looked around.

"Whoa…check this out." Ginnosuke was standing behind the car and leaning against the back bumper. He waved Adachi over with one hand, and Adachi could see that Ginnosuke was holding his new regulation firearm in the other hand. "You think this gun's more accurate than the one I used to have? Sure looks cooler. I didn't know that going up in the world meant that we were gonna get new weapons, too. This job just keeps getting better and better."

Adachi rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Are you coming, or not? I'm starving. You want some Korean? Uh, we're going dutch, though. I'm still broke from last month."

"Yeah, right…after all the booze we bought." Ginnosuke laughed. "Man, and they say you can't survive on a liquid diet. What the hell do they know?"

Ginnosuke was still staring thoughtfully down at the gun. Suddenly and without warning, he cocked it, spun on his heel, and pointed it at Adachi.

"On second thought," he said, "you're gonna pay for lunch. I'm holding you up for your lunch money, got it?"

"What the-?" Adachi's whole body went stiff. Ginnosuke started laughing even louder this time, and Adachi mumbled a curse under his breath.

"Put that damn thing away," he muttered, pointing at the gun. "Don't be a dumbass. That's not funny."

Ginnosuke shook his head. "Not funny? You should have seen the look on your face!" He advanced a few steps forward, still covering Adachi with the gun. "Come one, what would you do? I mean, if you thought I was really gonna shoot you, what would you do? I bet you'd run, huh? You'd totally run. You'd get freaked out and just start running for it. Tell me I'm wrong."

Adachi could feel the sweat starting to pool at the back of his neck. "Come on, man, put that shit away. You want to get us both sacked? We're still at the station. If the Chief sees you, we're both in deep shit. Let's get some food. I'll buy you a drink, okay? Just one, though. Seriously, knock it off."

Ginnosuke, however, didn't stop. "What would you do?" he insisted. "Pretend I'm the villain in a one of those weirdo detective things you're always reading. What do you do when you're in a one-on-one fight? You remember your training, right? Come on, show me. Let's see what you've got."

"You're a fucking idiot," muttered Adachi. "Seriously, you are dumb as a sack of shit. Just…just put the gun down. One of us is gonna get hurt, and it's probably gonna be me, because it always is. I'm always the guy getting screwed over. Just give me the-!"

Ginnosuke took another step forward, and tripped. He went down, and the gun flew out of his hands. Adachi panicked, grabbed the gun before it could hit the ground, and then reached an arm out instinctively to help Ginnosuke to his feet.

"See?" he began. "That's what happens when you show off like an obnoxious little prick-!"

Inadvertently Adachi squeezed the trigger of the gun as he transferred it to his other hand. The gun went off, and Ginnosuke suddenly bellowed in pain and toppled onto his face on the pavement.

"H-holy shit!" Adachi dropped the gun and sank to his knees next to Ginnosuke. "I..I'm sorry! I...crap, crap, holy fucking crap. You're bleeding like crazy. Here, uh…"

He took off his jacket and threw it over Ginnosuke's leg, pushing down hard on the wound and trying to staunch the blood." Uh, right, yeah, okay. Hold that there. Shit, what's next? The hell am I supposed to do now? I can't, uh…"

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" shouted Ginnosuke, his eyes bulging. "Do something, you idiot! I'm gonna bleed out and die! You fucking shot me!"

Adachi's ears rang, and his head was a mess. He couldn't think straight for long enough to consider what he'd learned in his first aid training. "Uh…damnit…how am I supposed to-?"

"What's going on here?" A uniformed police officer came running over to them from the other side of the lot, apparently attracted by all the shouting. "What are you-? Oh my god." He turned to Adachi. "What are you waiting for, rookie? Call a damn ambulance!"

"Y-yeah!" Adachi fumbled for his cell, and started dialing 119. "Hey, emergency? Yeah, uh, there's been an accident at the police station. What? No, this isn't a joke! I said 'the police station!'"

As Adachi argued with the emergency operator, he could hear Ginnosuke and the police officer shouting at each other in the background.

"What happened here?" demanded the police officer.

Adachi turned around just in time to see Ginnosuke glaring and pointing at him. "He fucking shot me!" Ginnosuke said for the second time. "He was messing around with that damn gun, and he fucking shot me!"


	4. I Say

**Four: I Say**

"…and that's pretty much it," finished Adachi with a sigh. "They were thinking about taking my badge away, but in the end they decided to pack me off to Inaba instead to keep me out of trouble. I guess everybody figured that nothing really happens in Inaba, so it was the best place for an unreliable punk like me."

Nanako blinked. "But…why? You didn't do anything wrong. I mean…it was an accident!"

"Sure it was," agreed Adachi, not meeting Nanako's eyes. "But it was an accident with a fucking gun. Somebody could have gotten killed. Shit like that gets taken seriously."

"But Ginnosuke-san was the one playing with the gun!" insisted Nanako.

"Heh." Adachi gave her a grim little smile. "That's not what he said. As soon as he was done screaming his pussy head off, he told everybody that I had started threatening him with the gun, and that I'd been joking around with it before it went off. Why the hell wouldn't they believe him? I was the one holding the gun. He was the one with the bullet in his leg. It looked bad. And hey, they weren't totally wrong. I did shoot the guy."

"But…" Nanako could feel herself starting to get angry. "That's not right and it's not fair. You weren't responsible for what happened. Ginnosuke-san wasn't telling them the truth at all."

Adachi didn't say anything for a moment. He gazed thoughtfully down at his hands, and when he did look up again, Nanako saw just the slightest trace of the old Adachi in his eyes. There was something empty and slightly desperate about the way he looked at her, and it reminded her just a little of the awful look in Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto's eyes on that fateful day in the TV world.

"The truth?" he asked. "There's no such thing as the truth. How many damn times do I have to tell you? The truth is whatever the hell people feel like believing. It's all in our heads. You make up your own 'truth,' just like Ginnosuke did. It's how the world works. You're not a little kid any more. It's time you figured that out."

For several seconds, the two of them sat in silence while Adachi angrily contemplated his fingertips, and Nanako thought about what Adachi had just said.

She didn't like it at all, and she didn't want to believe it, but at the same time, it was hard to completely deny it.

_People believe what they want to believe, _she thought. _Everyone does. Even me. It's normal to be that way._

"Adachi-san," she said.

He looked up at her. "What?"

"I believe you." Nanako nodded. "I know that it was an accident. You know that, too, so…that can be our truth. You said yourself that people believe what they want to believe. So? We can do that, too. We can believe whatever we want to believe. It doesn't matter what anyone else says."

"Heh." Adachi shook his head and gave her one of his sheepish little smiles. "Yeah, I guess so. Don't get me wrong; it's water under the bridge. Doesn't matter to me one way or another anymore, but-!"

"It matters to me," insisted Nanako.

Adachi threw up his hands. "Yeah, and that's all that counts, right? Jeez."

"Hey…" said Nanako. "You know that's not what I meant."

He grinned at her.

**The next day, at the Inaba police station…**

As soon as school was over, Nanako rushed to the police station, and caught Adachi eating a very late lunch at his desk.

"Huh?" he asked. "What are you doing here? I told you, I'm working late today." He grimaced. "You can blame your Dad for that."

Nanako ignored him. "I finished it!" she announced, plunking her notebook triumphantly down on his desk.

Adachi eyed the notebook. "You what?"

"I finished my essay," repeated Nanako. "I stayed up all last night re-writing and re-writing t, and I think it's pretty good! Go on, read it! Please?"

"Uh…not now." Adachi sighed. "Look, I've got all this work to do before I can clock out."

"Please," insisted Nanako. "It won't take long! It's a short essay. I just want to know if you like it!"

"Jeez, you're needy," muttered Adachi. "Can't you see I'm trying to be an upstanding and hardworking citizen, here?"

Nanako raised an eyebrow.

"Fine, fine, give me the notebook." Adachi took it out of her hands, and opened to the second page. Nanako stood at his elbow and watched eagerly as he read through it.

The essay ran as follows;

_What I Want to Be When I Grow Up_

_By Nanako Dojima_

_I spent a long time thinking about how I wanted to answer this question. It is not an easy question, and I am only seventeen. I think that it is hard to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life when you are only seventeen. If I made a decision right now, it might end up being the wrong one. Lots of people make bad career decisions and end up wishing they had picked something else to do with their lives. I have heard a lot of stories about bad decisions, and I do not want to make a bad decision of my own. _

_Therefore, I do not really know exactly what I want to do when I graduate from high school. I am hoping that I will learn more about different professional options if I spend some time in college. _

_I think that what I should be doing right now is focusing on what is really important to me. While I was planning this essay, I thought a lot about WHO I want to be when I grow up, instead of WHAT I want to be when I grow up._

"You shouldn't capitalize shit when you're writing a school paper," mumbled Adachi absently. "It looks tacky."

"Keep reading!"insisted Nanako.

_When I grow up, I want to be the kind of person who helps people. I think everyone says things like that, but I really mean it. I want to be someone who can make people feel better, and who can help people stand up when they fall down._

_Most importantly, I want to be the kind of person who listens and believes in people. There are two sides to every situation, and there is good in every person, and it is important to me that people recognize that in themselves and in each other. I want to work in a job where I can help people to learn the truth about how good other people can be. _

_I think that maybe that means I should be a lawyer or a judge. I do not know if that is really what lawyers and judges do, and I want to learn more about that. _

_The truth is that I want to change the world, and I want to find a job that will help me do that. _

For a long time, Adachi didn't say anything. The silence started to worry Nanako.

"Um…is it really bad?" she asked. "I thought it was pretty good, actually. I did a lot of editing before I brought it over."

Adachi frowned. "It's, uh…it's not bad," he muttered. "That last line is pretty stupid, though, and kind of cliché. You gotta put something else in there besides 'I want to change the world.' No teacher in her right mind is gonna buy that."

"Oh…okay." Nanako was slightly frustrated. "I don't know how to say that another way. How do I-?"

Adachi shrugged. "Now you want me to write it for you? You'll figure it out."

Nodding, Nanako took her notebook and her rising disappointment and started for the door.

"You know what, though," mumbled Adachi as Nanako left, more to himself than to Nanako. "If anybody could do it…it'd probably be you."

"What?" asked Nanako. "If anyone could do what?"

Adachi shook his head, and waved her away. "Forget it. Go fix your essay, I have shit to do."


End file.
